I spent a few days last week in Holland, Michigan, taking in the cultural traditions of this Dutch-American town I’d never visited before and busking in the sunshine during the annual Tulip Time festival with my powerhouse pal Grace Van’t Hof (banjo/uke/vocals with Sinner Friends + art/design). It’s a beautiful thing to see people celebrating a shared sense of connection and identity in any kind of positive way, and this was a fine example of that.

I saw a champion Town Crier, “Dutch” dancing (which may have been invented in the New World but that’s ok), lots of people in Dutch costume and I tasted some Dutch delicacies (Banket for the win). My question is, how do we take that feeling of togetherness and bring it into a city of many different cultures and traditions coexisting side by side? Read on…

Happy Springtime Everybody! In this email I will share some recent links to interviews I’ve done, catch you up on what I’ve been doing the last couple months, tell you a bit about the big solo album I’ve been working on, and of course I will share some very exciting events that are coming up. Let’s start with the gigs!

Sunday, June 16 – Ann Arbor, MI – SOLO SHOW AT THE ARK – This is such a big deal for me, my solo debut at this fantastic venue. Please help me spread the word, send your friends out and come see the show if you live anywhere nearby.

There will be more gigs to tell you about but I plan to send another email before the show at the Ark. I will be promoting that show as well as the big big reggae square dance (happening June 15) on Border City Roots, Allison Brown’s radio show on CJAM 99.1-FM on Thursday, June 13, 10:30am-12pm, and yes, you can listen online! This is a beginning to an answer to the question I posed at the very top of this email, and it has to do with opening up our Detroit Square Dance Society events to include other kinds of dance music, sharing our different traditions and mixing it up in the name of a bigger party with more fun for more people. This also brings me to sharing some of my

Recent Interviews

I appeared on Border City Roots last month and had a great time playing live in the studio, sharing some recordings and getting interviewed by Allison. If you’d like to hear the full show, why, just follow this link right here!

I also enjoyed the great honor of being featured on a recent episode of Keith Billik’s Picky Fingers Banjo Podcast. Keith has been doing great work, making this podcast for and by banjo players. (Full disclosure, I also contribute to the podcast as an occasional interviewer.) It is pretty banjocentric but non-banjo players have told me they found my interview immensely enriching and entertaining. So if you’d like to hear that, well, just try this link out, this one right here!

Solo Album In The Works

I imagine most of you know that I’ve been pretty obsessed with early fingerstyle banjo, aka “classic banjo” for a while now, as my Instagram feed will attest. Now I am really going for it, making an album entirely devoted to some of the works of Joe Morley, who I like to call the Mozart of the Banjo, and that is the working title of the album.

I’ve already had a great recording session with Ben Belcher (for double banjo pieces) and another with pianists Tessa Hartle and Kevin Allswede (for banjo-piano pieces). Next week I have one more session with Tessa and another one with Grace Van’t Hof (ukulele) and Rachel Pearson (bass) to record a very special piece by Joe Morley, his tribute to Hawaiian music entitled Mauna Loa.

Trusting this all goes well I will move into the mixing phase of the project at the end of this month and get the puppy mastered some time in June! I’m hoping to have prerelease sales available as soon as July and an official release in the fall. Stay tuned, and be very very excited because an album like this doesn’t come along very often. In fact, I don’t think an album quite like this has ever been recorded…!

What The Heck Have I Been Up To

Honestly I’ve been practicing fiddle/violin and banjo more and more the past few months and it’s been very hard for me to take myself away from music practice to mow the lawn, let alone write a massive email. So I’m pleased to really be doing less things but with more focus.

I have been playing with some local bands, such as the Hillbilly Executives, who play Nashville-style Honky Tonk. That’s been a fun outlet for me. And I’ve been working hard on promoting these local square dance events. I’ve enjoyed the efforts of so many promoters over the years who put so much hard work into creating an event and getting folks out. Now it’s my turn to take on that role, at least some of the time.

The Brooklyn Folk Festival with Lovestruck Balladeers was an absolute dream come true. I had an incredible banjo session with the Clarke Buehling, Jerron Paxton, Frank Fairfield and others, I got to see so many great friends all at once, and I got a huge amount of satisfaction from rehearsing every day with the band for two weeks and then absolutely killing it on stage. That performance was one of the great highlights of my career, I have to say.

Directly after the festival we went into the studio and recorded more good takes than we know what to do with. The timeline for album release is yet to be determined, but just wait, there is going to be one sweet-hot Lovestruck Balladeers record heading your way later this year!

Blues Week

I will be on the faculty of Blues Week in Port Townsend this summer, July 28-Aug 4 so if anyone is thinking about exploring an interest in acoustic blues, I just have to say, come on out! And if anyone has blues fiddle links to send my way, please send me everything you’ve got.

Banjo Rally

At the end of this month I’ll be at the American Banjo Fraternity‘s Spring Rally. Some of you may recall me gushing about the experience I had when I attended a couple years ago. Now I am so excited to see my old banjo friends again and introduce a few new faces to the scene as well. This early fingerstyle banjo music was the most popular form of music a hundred years ago. Today it’s almost entirely forgotten. I am trying to keep it alive and spread it around as it’s a delightful style that brings joy and connects us to the depth of our shared American history.

Happy Mother’s Day, Everybody

Thanks to all the mothers out there. Without you, none of us would be here.

I made it back from the frozen North and I have stories to tell! I also have upcoming gigs and other fun items to share with you. In this email you will find

— Tour Highlights

— Upcoming Gigs

— Picky Fingers Podcast Feature Teaser

— CBC Radio Interview

— Book Report

— New Videos

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

So I went ahead and posted my tour journal from the Yukon trip on my website as a separate post. You can read all about it and see some photos here. I can’t remember anything that happened before the tour, it was such an amazing trip.

The last time I went to the trouble of posting a tour journal was five years ago when I went to India with the earliest lineup of Corn Potato String Band. That tour journal can be found here, in case you missed it.

UPCOMING GIGS

I’ve been doing so many various things lately but I am focusing more on solo work these days, so I have a few solo shows coming up, some shows and recording sessions with Lovestruck Balladeers, and a few wild cards thrown in for good measure. As always, see the calendar on my website for all the details. Check it!

This is especially for the banjo pickers out there but may be of interest to anyone who is, you know, interested in the banjo and its picking thereof.

My pal Keith Billik, a fine banjo player of metro Detroit who is also a member of 50/50/50 Raffle, has been producing a wonderful banjocentric podcast called Picky Fingers, and an upcoming episode will feature Yours Truly — Here is the teaser/preview so you can go ahead and subscribe now and it will magically appear under your podcast tree when it’s released. Picky Fingers Banjo Podcast: Bonus — Who Is AJL?

CBC RADIO INTERVIEW

Ben and I did an interview with Dave White on CBC Radio at the start of our tour, and you can hear what we talked about here. And then we ate sushi.

BOOK REPORT

The last time I was in Canada before this last trip (on my way back from Hawaii) I was given a book to read called TheGoldenSpruce, by John Vaillant. Well, I read it and I thought it was well-researched and well-written and one heck of a story. It reached back through layers of indigenous history and culture with some good plant biology and human madness as well. I felt mixed emotions for the main character, who did a horrible thing but had good intentions, while he was clearly suffering from a mental breakdown. This is a book I would recommend, especially if you are interested in relationships between plants and humans, between different groups of humans, and the relationship a person has with her- or himself.

I had to pack super light for the Yukon trip so didn’t even bring one book but I did start reading Noise: ThePoliticalEconomyofMusic, by Jacques Attali, which I had downloaded to my phone. This book, despite having been written in 1977, seems as relevant today as ever. Also well-researched, each paragraph seems to take ten minutes to process, there is so much information in each sentence. And I love sweeping generalizations! This book is full of them.

Ben picked BraveNewWorld, by Aldous Huxley, off my shelf for the trip and I read a few pages here and there. There’s another book that is still relevant today. What a world… I have to reread the book properly but it is hard on the soul, isn’t it?

NEW VIDEOS

You didn’t think I would leave you without some new videos to enjoy now, did you? Here are a couple of Lovestruck Balladeers videos we are getting ready to release, recorded live at my favorite venue in the world, the GAR Hall in Peninsula, Ohio (but don’t tell the other venues I said that, ok?) — We have a novelty rag that became a standard of the fancy fiddling repertoire called Black & White Rag, and an original number by Dennis Lichtman called Waltz for Camila.

The short answer is three, plus a fiddle and a pile of CDs, a few instrument stands, change of clothes, toothbrush, etc. But let’s go back to what this was all about and how it came to be:

Some time last fall I got a phone call from Tim Osmond, director of Home Routes, the Canadian nonprofit organization that sends musicians into rural communities all over Canada throughout the winter time to provide live music in the form of house concerts in places where live music wouldn’t otherwise be commonly found. The energy and commitment of the hundreds of volunteers who make this all work is so inspiring. (Ben and I did our first Home Routes tour in Manitoba two years ago and got to know Tim when we played at his house in Winnipeg at the end of the tour.) Our conversation went something like this:

Tim: Hey Aaron, are you and Ben free in February?
AJL: Let me check… (inspects watchless wrist) Yeah, I think so. What’s up?
Tim: Do you guys want to do a Home Routes tour in the Yukon the first half of the month?
AJL: …Uh, yeah? (Like, is a tree made out of wood?)
Tim: That’s great! I’ll send you the itinerary when it’s ready. Start looking for flights. You’re going to have the best time.
AJL: OK, I’ll just double check that Ben’s free and get back to you, ok?
Tim: OK great! Talk to you soon.

So I called Ben right away and the conversation went something like this:

AJL: Hey Ben, Tim from Home Routes asked if we wanted to do the Yukon tour in February and I said yes, I’ll just double check with you. Can you do it? First two weeks in February?
BB: …Uh, yeah? (Like, is a tree made out of wood?)
AJL: OK great, I guess we’ll just have to think about how to get there. Driving is probably not an option but if we fly how will we get all our instruments out there? [We drove to Manitoba for our last Home Routes tour and brought five banjos, three fiddles, a guitar and a mandolin.]
BB: Yeah… I don’t know. Maybe we can borrow a guitar from someone out there.
AJL: That’s a good idea. And I’ll bet we can just bring minimal luggage and bring two instruments each for our carry on items.
BB: Yeah, we can bring the two Senoritas to play our classic banjo repertoire, and a bluegrass banjo and a fiddle for everything else. Plus that guitar we’re going to borrow.
AJL: All right. I’ll find us some plane tickets. We’re doing this!

Note: The thought that it would be too cold or too remote or too anything never crossed our minds until we started telling people we were doing this. It didn’t seem extreme, it just seemed like an incredible opportunity to see a very special place and meet some people we wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to meet. I got our plane tickets from Toronto to Whitehorse and rented a car and started contacting our hosts once I had the itinerary. And every time Ben and I talked we couldn’t get over how excited we were for this trip.

Before the tour officially started Ben came to Detroit to rehearse with me for a couple days and then we drove to Toronto to stay with the Debbie and Peter, Toronto’s patron saints of wandering old time musicians, and play a show at The Local. We made the drive in a car that didn’t have heat, which I thought would be no big deal, but as it turned out it was the coldest day in 11 years. So we made a few stops for hot liquids and just wore all our clothes and put those little hot packs things in our boots. Crossing the border was tough, since the border guards wanted to open everything up and it was literally freezing just to take your gloves off for a minute. I had to get out of the car to pay the toll since the window was frozen shut. But we made it past the border and the instruments survived. And here begins the tour journal (Cliff’s notes):

Day -1 (Jan 30): Ben and I fly from Toronto to Edmonton to Vancouver to Whitehorse. In the end we make it to Whitehorse only a couple hours late, around 1:30am, with only one of our bags lost. Sarah, Whitehorse’s patron saint of doughnuts and fiddling, met us at the airport after having been up since 4am that day herself, making doughnuts all day and then selling them. We get back to her place and meet Bob, her dad, who loans us a sweet rebuilt Harmony guitar for the tour.

Day 0 (Jan 31): I teach a fiddle workshop at Bob’s music shop but first we go and check out the start of the Yukon Quest dogsled race. It’s very cold outside and very exciting. We learned later on that that hardest part at the start of the race is keeping the dogs from running off too soon. They are just ready to go and you have to anchor the sled to keep it from going too soon. And then once they start running they will not stop for anything, you have to throw some hooks out to catch the ground and force them to stop or else they’ll run themselves to death, apparently. After all that we went to the CBC studio and had a nice interview with Dave White, and then we went out for our first sushi in the Yukon. The temperature was -40. (About the same in C or F.) We also saw a sundog!

Day 1 (Feb 1): Our first concert, in Whitehorse. Our first taste of amazing salmon. Our first hosts, Fia and Joel and their lovely daughters Ava and Lily. A good show with a nice crowd and we started improving our sets. We learn about engine block heaters — All the cars have a little plug dangling out the front of the hood and you’re supposed to plug that in at night when it’s especially cold so the car will start in the morning. It worked for us!

Day 2 (Feb 2): Crag Lake with Greg, Krystal and a 14-year-old Oscar. We had our own cabin down the hill from the house where we played and it even had heat. Saw more stars than ever. Also saw some Aurora borealis.

Days 3-4 (Feb 3-4): Atlin, BC (should be YT) with Chris and Stuart. Really good show, more amazing sockeye salmon, lunch with remote-nurse Leanne and her delightful salad and oh those butter tarts! and her picturesque cabin with the view all obscured by falling snow, visiting John the hoarder and his house of marvels, getting to know him a bit and try to understand what it’s like to be a multi-dimensional creature, playing at the rec room on our day off and having jams both nights, meeting a local 90-year-old fiddler and hearing him play a tune on my fiddle and hear some of his stories, the views of the lake, more butter tarts, and we are sad to leave this place.

Day 5 (Feb 5): Marsh Lake with Shirley and Gerald and their big black dog, kicksledding to the lake and I’m somehow the one who is supposed to know what to do with the can of bear spray should we need it.

Day 6 (Feb 6): Haines Junction with Ryan and Meghann, Margaret (age 6) and Benji (age 3). Such beautiful scenery, the mountains, the light. Seeing the sun go down around 5pm and rise at 10am, the pink light on the snowy mountains, Margaret playing her fiddle for us, another great show with an all-ages audience, eating bison steaks Ryan harvested himself. Apparently this area has an overpopulation of bison. Also, one of them will feed a family of four for a year, with extra for guests.

Day 7 (Feb 7): Whitehorse again. Eileen, Ruth’s sister hosts us, along with Sohil and Rohit. Lacey, Ruth’s daughter made delicious salmon for us. After the show we went out with new friends Ellorie and Aly to the Old 98 for Fiddle Night. This Yukon fiddler has been playing at this place every Thursday for the last 40 years. We met his guitar player, Paul, two nights before in Marsh Lake and we saw him there. Also saw Ollie (sp?) who was at the fiddle workshop the week before. Roughly half the people in the room were fiddle players. The music was great. I saw people jigging to Red River Jig in a casual, nonperformative manner, which I suppose I’d never seen before.

Day 8 (Feb 8): Got up early to teach a fiddle lesson to Ellorie and Aly before heading to Lisa and Vince’s in Faro, our first long drive of the tour. Vince welcomed us in and shared his tasty homebrew with us. Small turnout that night but a good feeling.

Day 9 (Feb 9): Mayo. Big group effort from the local committee. Communicated with one person leading up to it, got let in to the church where we played (our first house concert not in a house) by another person, had dinner at another person’s house and slept at a guest house. They’d been heating the church up since that morning with the wood burning stove and it was almost warm enough to feel my toes. Still, good turnout and a great time.

Day 10-11 (Feb 10-11): Dawson City with Peter. I taught a fiddle workshop in the school Sunday before the concert with a few kids and grownups, learned a little bit about Yukon fiddling and the effort to bring it back (much like what was done in Cape Breton by the likes of Buddy McMaster a generation or two ago). Played at Alex & Misha’s house, who turns out to be a friend of a friend. The next day, Monday off, we spend two hours with 5th- and 6th-graders playing our music for them, taking their questions, and eventually making music to silent movie clips in real time. Later on we treat ourselves to a nice dinner at the El Dorado and then we go to the Downtown for the World Famous Sourtoe Cocktail. After that we tried to play at the Tavern with encouragement from our Captain Katie but it was too late so we went back to Peter’s house. He was sitting at the kitchen table working on Midnight On The Water so we messed around with DDAD for a little bit and went to bed to catch an early flight to Inuvik the next day.

Day 12-13 (Feb 12-13): Inuvik, Northwest Territories (Arctic!) with Sue, son Arlo (age 19) and husband Peter. We flew first to Old Crow, which we’d heard so much about but we didn’t stay. In Inuvik Sue met us at the airport, took us into town the back way on the ice road (i.e. frozen river) with Ben buried under all the instruments since the back of the truck wasn’t heated. What an amazing place. We’re in the Arctic. Arlo took us Skidooing over to their camp a few kilometers up the river. I sat in deep snow and saw and heard crows and ravens call and flap their wings very close by in perfect silence, which Arlo and Ben Skidooed around the frozen lake. (A Skidoo is also known as a snowmobile.) Caribou steaks and moose meatballs for dinner, also remarkable sourdough bread. It was perfect Skidoo weather, like -5 and sunny. The next day was more like normal, around -30 and windy. We took Jane, the youngest dog, around frozen Boot Lake. For dinner Peter grilled char (the Arctic kind, duh) for dinner. The concert at Mark and Berta’s was our best turnout and best performance and best CD sales of the whole tour. Amazing people. Hung out for a while after but eventually I went to bed. Ben went out to the Trapper and that’s another story. Good thing this was our last concert of the tour, but was it?

Day 14 (Feb 14): Peter took us to the grocery store and to see inside the igloo church before taking us to the airport. Flight into Dawson from the north was so beautiful, I really got inspired to revisit landscape art, e.g. Sounds of Mount Desert Island. Soon as we land we jump in the car and drive straight to Whitehorse (about 5 1/2 hours) for our final show. We made it in good time, saw Sarah again and gave her back Bob’s guitar he so graciously loaned us, and saw Leanne again and returned her ‘rescue bag’ she so graciously loaned us. (She was surprised no one else had made sure we were prepared and insisted we take a couple sleeping bags and some candles from her in case anything goes wrong with the car and we have to wait for help in the freezing cold.) Negotiating the details of this final gig was the worst and so unnecessarily stressful but the show itself went great.

Day 15 (Feb 15): Got up at 3am to prepare for 6am flight and get to the airport in time to find out it’s delayed. Somehow miraculously made it back to Toronto by way of Vancouver and Winnipeg but not in time to check out the square dance. Ate all the doughnuts Sarah gave us right there in the airport before boarding. Only one banjo case was seriously damaged in transit. Back in Toronto we picked up the things we left at Peter & Debbie’s and moved over to Conny and Rachel’s place. They are also patron saints of wandering musicians. The next day Ben flew to L.A. and I played a solo show at The Local and then picked up Billy at the airport (he was on the same flight I’d been on the day before) and took him to Kitchener, where I played the following day. Billy has been working in the Arctic and working closely with indigenous people there for some years now and he told me some interesting things he’s learned about the ancient Inuit lifestyle. But that’s for another time…

And here are some photos from the trip!

That’s a sundog (or sun dog).

CBC Studios, Whitehorse

Hamilton & Son Guitar Works, Whitehorse

Marsh Lake selfie and kicksleds

I’m not including a photo of the gnarly toe but I do have photos.

That’s it for photos my website would let me upload. For more you’ll just have to ask me in person or come over to my house and look at the SourToe Club certificate hanging on my wall.

I got back from the remote Hawaiian island of Kauai a few days ago (with a truly excellent stop over in Toronto on my way home – see previous post from April, 2017, “I Heart Canada”) and when I stepped outside from the train from the airport in Toronto and breathed in that cool winter air I felt like I was home again. So I’m finally back for more than a day or two and I’ll catch you up on everything:

So, Kauai. It’s an interesting place. In terms of the landscape and plant life it was sort of an Alice in Wonderland experience for me. Dramatically beautiful views everywhere you look, avocado, mango, citrus, passionfruit (“lilikoi” in Hawaiian), coconut, papaya, and even more kinds of fruit trees growing everywhere, no predators or fearsome creatures anywhere unless you count the ubiquitous roosters. (I heard about these giant venomous centipedes but luckily never saw one.) So it was delightful and disconcerting at the same time.

The festival was a blast. I got to hang and play with my Foghorn Stringband pals as well as Austin and Courtney Derryberry, Cajun Country Revival, and a number of other good friends, and I got to meet a bunch of great new friends as well. Hearing some traditional Hawaiian music in person for the first time was fantastic. And playing Mauna Loa, Joe Morley’s banjo tribute to Hawaiian music, during a solo set at the festival was a particular honor and a treat for me.

After the festival I stuck around for another week and got to meet some more local musicians and hear some great music, especially Doug & Sandy McMaster’s traditional slack key guitar concert. I did some busking at the Hanapepe Art Night, had a jam at the uke shop, spent Thanksgiving on an organic farm with amazing new friends and incredible food, ate lots and lots of amazing foods, and oh yeah I even tried surfing one day! I got a lot of inspiration from this visit and hope to return to Kauai some day.

BANJO GATHERING

I just have to say something about the Banjo Gathering, which took place in Bristol, VA/TN, at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum just before I went to Hawaii. It was a small gathering of banjo fanatics who got together mainly for show and tell with their awesome banjo collections and for semi-academic style presentations on a range of banjo-related topics.

Michael Wright presented on the topic of Influence of the 5-String Banjo on Early Hawaiian Music, which I found especially interesting as I was about to go to Hawaii. The ukulele is Hawaii’s instrument but it is not particularly ancient, and the case can be made that the 5-string banjo played a part in the development of the uke. Many mysteries there, but very fun to think about. Also, early Hawaiian string band music is amazing!

I also liked a presentation by Christian Stanfield (of the Side Street Steppers) called Late 19th Century Banjo Antecedents in Early 20th Century Popular Music, in which he demonstrated, using a pair of Gramophones and a beautiful collection of original 78’s, the influence of early fingerstyle, or “classic” style banjo in early recordings of country and old time music, including recordings of Uncle Dave Macon and Dock Boggs playing in the older “classic” style of fingerpicking as opposed to the more “primitive” or “down-home” or “old timey” styles they were known for, showing that, as professionals, they played whatever the public or the record companies told them to play, but as musicians they were capable of much more.

Speaking of Uncle Dave, his great-grandson was there and gave two presentations about his life and times in support of the newly published biography he’d written. It’s on my list of books to read!

There were so many wonderful presentations as well as a concert which I was so honored to be a part of, and I won’t go on to describe all of them. But the most impressive had to have been Kristina Gaddy’s work in Suriname on the mind-blowing possible origin of the word Banjo and its meaning. I won’t go into it all here but it is truly fascinating, and her presentation with her partner banjo maker Pete Ross was a thrilling detective adventure story. I hope she is able to continue her research and get it all down in book form (or graphic novel, or documentary film, or whatever form) for the rest of us to enjoy again and again.

LOVESTRUCK BALLADEERS

Have I gushed enough about this band already? I don’t know if I have. Touring with them was such a dream come true and I feel that we are destined for great things. It’s so rare to find a group of musicians who are all on the same page the way I feel that this group is. The music we are playing is at times sublimely beautiful, challenging, and wild fun. We’re planning to record our first album in the spring and we should have some live videos from our tour ready to share in the next month or so. Stay tuned!

NEW VIDEOS

There’s been a deluge of new videos since I last wrote but I will list them all here anyway.

I have a couple weeks at home, finally! I’m going to practice music every day and not think too much about anything else. I’m working on Joe Morley banjo pieces and basic violin technique, scales, etudes, Lovestruck Balladeers repertoire, as well as random music I need to learn for some Christmas gigs. Ah, see below!

Saturday, Dec 15 – PRISM’s 2018 Winter Concert, at the Royal Oak Music Theater. PreGlow at 6:30, curtain at 7:30.

Sunday, Dec 16 – St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Utica, 5:30pm Christmas concert including small orchestra, choir, and handbell choir!!

And then I don’t have anything going on until 2019, when my first gig will be a

and then in late March and early April I’ll be with Lovestruck Balladeers again, rehearsing, recording and playing a few shows including

Saturday, Apr 6 – Brooklyn Folk Festival w/Lovestruck Balladeers

Many more exciting things are in the works but I’m going to wait until they’re confirmed to report them to you. You can always stay on top of my schedule by checking my website calendar. Hope to see you out there somewhere soon!

BOOK REPORT

I always forget about which books I’ve read as soon as I’ve read them. But I did finish reading Aku-Aku, by Thor Heyerdahl, and I enjoyed it immensely. Mysteries of Easter Island revealed! And that’s about all the books I’ve finished, so that was kind of a fake book report. Sorry.

I hope you are having a wonderful start to your winter time. Enjoy the cold while you can!

During the layover in Iceland on my way home from UK tour I was very excited to visit the duty-free shop and buy lots of Icelandic licorice (or liquorice, as it is sometimes written). As I sat at the gate happily munching away I recalled how complete disgusted I was by the stuff when I was a child, and reflected on how it’s now one of my favorite candies. Did the change happen suddenly or gradually? It doesn’t matter. The point is, people change, tastes change, you change, sometimes suddenly and sometimes so slowly you don’t notice it’s happening until years after it’s happened.

I’m in a bit of a hurry today as I’ve only been home a couple days and I’m leaving again tomorrow so this may be a relatively short one. But there are some fun surprises in store for you–

At Bunkfest in Wallingford we saw Pure Queen, aka the best Queen tribute band ever. Stayed one night on a boat across from Windsor Castle. Went swimming in the sea at Freshwater East, in Wales. Saw The Winter’s Tale at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Went on lots of nice walks along rivers. Played a great square dance in Richmond, London, with Rachel Eddy and Suzanne Ambrose joining in on guitar and bass. Ate American-style BBQ that was better than anything I ever thought I’d have in the UK in Barry, Wales. Stayed in a couple of medieval houses across the country. Played a bunch of sold out shows and great festivals and really played our best and visited with many of our favorite people in the world, old friends and new.

NEW CORN POTATO MUSIC VIDEOS!

I should really string these out but we have three new ones from our UK tour that are all great, especially this first one, shot and edited by John Breese Films. It’s our own version of Trombone Slide, which came to us by way of Curly Miller, RIP, of The Old 78’s, originally recorded by the State Street Ramblers in the 1920’s.

I can’t remember the last book I finished but I just started two books about islands. The first one, Aku-Aku, is written by Thor Heyerdahl (of Kon-Tiki fame) and covers his exploration and excavations of Easter Island. So many mysteries around that place and he dives right in. Chapter Two covers the extensive and terrifyingly narrow and dangerous underground cave systems of the island, which people used for refuge to hide from colonial invaders and from each other during times of war.

The other book is more contemporary, a recently published history of the colonization of Hawaii by Sarah Vowell entitled UnfamiliarFishes. It’s very informal in tone and comes across like having coffee with a very well-informed friend with a sharp sense of humor who also cares deeply about the subject matter. I figured I should learn a little bit about Hawaii before I make my first trip over there in November, and this seems as good a place to start as any.

ALL FOR NOW

Thanks for tuning in. As always, come see me at a show, say hi, and if you can’t make it send some friends out in your place! See my website music page for free streaming music all the time. I hope you have a lovely end of summer and beginning of fall, my favorite season.

P.S. If for any reason you don’t want to receive these e-mails just write and let me know and I’ll take your name off. I don’t want to spam people so if you want off just let me know and it shall be done.

I was just driving home from a gig in Detroit and thinking I’d like to see a bumper sticker that says SAFE DRIVING IS SEXY. (Drivers in Detroit are insane.)

And then I started thinking what other boring, obvious things could be said to be sexy on a bumper sticker — KINDNESS IS SEXY, GOOD DENTAL HYGIENE IS SEXY, REDUCING YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT IS SEXY, RESPECT IS SEXY — and then I start getting into what wouldn’t work at all — JUSTICE IS SEXY, MASHED POTATOES IS SEXY, KITTENS IS SEXY, FRIENDSHIP IS SEXY — and the borderline misogynistic — WASHING THE DISHES IS SEXY, LOOKING GOOD IS SEXY — although those aren’t really sex-specific, and, well, what can I say, I’m sorry. I just thought of this and maybe it made you smile. Maybe you have your own ridiculous ideas for …IS SEXY bumper stickers. If you do, please send them my way.

And that’s how I’m starting this month’s post. I promise to ramble further at the end of this message with some more serious thoughts (or funnier, possibly, depending on your perspective) so just scroll down if that’s all you’re after. But first I will share with you my

– Upcoming Tour Dates, Including Incomplete Listing of UK Tour Dates
– Book Project and How You Can Participate
– Recommended Listening/Viewing (aka Media I’ve Ingested Since Last We Spoke and Friends I’ve Seen Recently Whose Music I Think Is Great)
– Book Report

UPCOMING TOUR DATES

I dont have a lot of gigs of my own in the immediate future but I will tell you about a couple things that are coming up soon that I’m excited about as well as the gigs I do have this summer.

First, I AM GOING TO SEE THE GEORGE CLINTON AND P-FUNK this Friday in Kalamazoo!! Not a big deal for some, I know, but honestly, P-Funk is one of the most important musical influences in my life and I haven’t been to one of their shows in probably twenty years.

The weekend after that, here in Detroit is the Crash Detroit Brass Band Festival, with over a dozen wonderful human party machines coming in to play for free all over the city. I’m hosting up to ten of these crazy musicians for the weekend because I can and I love hosting people. That’s what my house is for.

Then I’m going to Augusta Old Time Week/Blues & Swing Week in Elkins, WV, where I will be on staff, providing music for classes and teaching my own “Swing Fiddle for Old Time Fiddlers” class, plus 1-2 one-off workshops that are TBA.

And then there’s Clifftop followed by Galax, my personal Mecca. (See you there! You know who you are.)

And now I can give you an incomplete list of our Corn Potato String Band UK tour dates, since there are more than a few that are TBC —

When we get into October I go to Chicago to start a Midwestern tour with Lovestruck Balladeers — Tour dates TBA so stay tuned. Definitely got some great music coming your way!

BOOK PROJECT AND HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE

Since February I’ve been working sporadically on an instructional fiddle book tentatively titled Classic Nashville Honky Tonk Fiddle. I’m not going to tell you everything that’s in it but it will include a lot of transcriptions. I have consulted with some experts but before I call my transcribing duties finished I’d like to know if you have any great recorded examples of Classic Nashville Honky Tonk Fiddling that you think ought to be included. If you can think of something, like the name of an artist and a song, maybe even a link or an mp3 attachment, please send me your suggestions.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING/VIEWING

I went out to see my friend’s reggae band at El Club last Wednesday (yes, that’s how I celebrated my 4th of July) and they were SO GOOD. I’m going to see them again tomorrow. They’re called King Mellow & Mellow Runnings. They are the real thing. So talented. So positive. Do you ever remember how great reggae music is and then feel sad for a second because you know you forgot for a minute? Remember. Reggae is so good. Especially a full band with backup singers who dance, a super-charismatic and talented lead singer and a fun, tight backing band.

They were opening for well-established blast-from-the-past dancehall deejay King Yellowman, who was incredible, honestly, like nothing else I’d ever seen. SO MUCH ENERGY it was almost frightening and the vibe was fun, positive, beautiful.

On the last tour with Roochie Toochie in St. Louis after a gig I went to my friend Ethan Leinwand’s late-night gig and sat in with him, which was such a treat. His piano blues playing will knock your socks off, and everyone who plays with him is wonderful as well. Check out his online stuff and go see him if you’re in St. Louis. He plays most every night.

I can’t remember what I read. I read and immediately forget. It’s 2 in the morning and my neighbors are blasting Banda music across the street so that isn’t helping either.

BONUS THOUGHT RAMBLES

Two unrelated thoughts for you this time.

The English language is so vast and conglomerative that it’s likely you will say one sentence every day that has never been spoken before in history. Or so I read somewhere once. Anyway, I sometimes think about that when I’m going to the grocery store to get a very random selection of items. Has anyone in the world ever gone into a store to buy celery, marshmallows, corn starch, laundry detergent, and nothing else? Who cares, it doesn’t matter.

I had the same thought tonight while I was playing. Naturally, the language of music is even more vast and conglomerative than English (See this fun and comprehensive video to learn more about the near-infinite variety available in music — Will We Ever Run Out of New Music?), and the same can be said of visual arts, other forms of performance as well as athletics, including chess, and I suppose it applies to most human interactions as well, except perhaps in some totalitarian societies.

But that’s not my point. This near-infinite variety isn’t the reason I care so much about music but it doesn’t hurt. I don’t usually think about it at all, the way I don’t usually think about how funny it is that each person or each football game is unique. I just thought it was a fun thought to share and it led me to think about how even simple mathematical functions can produce infinite variety (see this Wikipedia article on cellular automata) and how these functions along with fractal geometry make it possible for the blueprints for a giant oak to be contained within a little acorn.

Okay, that’s one thought. Here’s another:

As a player of old music I end up in a lot of situations where I’m surrounded by other players of old music, and I always have to wonder how so many people will painstakingly recreate the sound of an old recording (I certainly do sometimes) and then stop there. That’s an excellent first step but what I’m really interested in is not recreating the sound of an old recording but exploring and trying to relive the impulse behind the making of that recording.

For example, you could listen to a great field recording of a long-dead fiddler from Kentucky, and think about the fact that the recording captured one performance of the tune. That fiddler would play the tune a little different if they played it again the next day. That sense of freedom and innovation is at the core of old American music, and maybe more. As I’ve heard some folks say, if nobody ever made up new tunes we wouldn’t have any tunes to play at all! So where does that creativity come from? Where is the tradition, the community that informs that creativity, i.e., the creativity to do more than reenact old recordings? Where is it now? I have a few answers of my own but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Almost two weeks ago I subbed in on plectrum banjo with a world-class 13-piece Ragtime ensemble called the River Rasin Ragtime Revue. It was an honor and a privilege to play some pure, beautiful, exquisite and simply fun Ragtime music with this group.

Probably the least important, but also the only material thing I took away from the experience was a bookmark commemorating the dedication of the Scott Joplin Memorial Bench in St. Michael’s Cemetery, East Elmhurst, NY. This bench is significant because Scott Joplin, who most of you have heard of as the King of Ragtime, was buried in an unmarked grave and no monument was erected in his honor until now. That would be like if Elvis had been buried in an unmarked grave and no one did anything about it until fifty years from now.

In some ways that’s what I’m all about. Drawing attention to the treasures of our cultural past, buried just below the surface without any markers to draw attention. On the other hand, the steamroller of culture is always moving forward and some things will be forgotten no matter what. In any case, try and live in the moment because nobody knows what tomorrow may bring!

All right, are you still with me? Welcome to my world of email world. In this email I will mainly tell you about the upcoming tour dates, one very special new video, some new records I’ve been enjoying, and a hearty book report. Let’s begin!

and that takes us up into July, what should be the “busy season” but somehow I have zero gigs the entire month. July 22-27 I will be on staff at the August Old Time/Blues & Swing Week in Elkins, WV and then I will most likely head to Clifftop and for sure to Galax.

After Galax we are doing a Corn Potato String Band tour in the UK – dates TBA, stay tuned! – followed immediately by the Wheatland Music Festival back in Michigan.

Very Special New Video

I’ve been working with a new project made up of old friends I met when I was living in NYC ten or so years ago and we’re calling it Lovestruck Balladeers. In October we will do our first tour and we have this video to show the world that we are a good band, worthy of attention! What do you think? Do you have any ideas for good venues for a five-piece eclectic early jazz group like this? Here’s the video – I hope you like it!

New Records I’ve Been Enjoying

I picked up some records on my travels and have been enjoying them very much. Without gushing too much I’ll just list some of them here, provide links where I can and maybe a brief description:

Matthew Hartz The Marion Sessions – Master of Texas Contest Fiddling and Multiple World Championship Title Holder – also super great guy I got to tour with in April!

Jake Sanders – Estrellas de Radio – Beautiful string jazz instrumentals, plus Italian waltzes and polkas and more. Oh yeah, and I played on this. All the Lovestruck Balladeers played on this. Check it out, it’s really good.

River Raisin Ragtime Revue – So far I’ve only listened to their Animal Fair album and it is excellent. They have a few more to check out as well. Everything this group does is top-notch.

Toddle Shakers – “Tickeld, Too” – Fresh & Funky Party Music of the 1920s & 1930s – from the West Coast. Loving this.

I also unearthed a little treasure trove of CDs I got from my friend Diptanshu when I was in India (Five years ago?? Can it have been that long ago?) Some powerfully transcendent yet emotional religious music from the Baul Fakirs of Bengal – here is an example – as well as more modern Indian folk/pop music such as Chandrabindoo – amazing singing and creativity.

I almost forgot to promote my own album

I recently released my first and only all-original album. It includes the hit song Crazy Cats — Check out the music video! Here is the link to the free download of the album. Knock yourself out! If you prefer not to download things I made for free or even stream it and would rather read a description, here you go:

Softgels style is what comes before and after the during part. Enhance your groove spirit and mind essence with party fun time Softgels. More modern than jazz or techno, more old-fashioned than airplanes or the internet, Softgels music is so inside you now.

Yesterday I finished reading The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience, by Stephen Wade. I spent about a year reading it and I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone interested in the roots and meaning of American music and cultural traditions. Here are a few of my notes from reading this book:

hearing music in its natural environment like seeing a polar bear in the wild vs. in a zoo

“folklore, a concept that unites specific communities with wisdom and knowledge rooted in the past, not as something inherently remote, but as something intrinsically local” — What is local now?

meaning & context of a song can change, however “every artistic expression has an ideology underneath”

folklore as creative expression vs folklore as a cultural record

“the choice of every note involves an act of will”

“the song and its singing are indissolubly connected”

“It doesn’t matter where a particular song or tune originated; what does matter is what has become of it.”

“Tricks of embellishment, originally the property of one player, once exhibited, become the property of all the players in his vicinity if they be of sufficient merit to catch their interest.”

Goodbye for now

That’s all for now. Keep in touch, write me back. I love to hear from you. I love even better to see you. Come out to any of these shows you can and say hi!

I am so excited to share with you this album of material I made almost ten years ago. it’s taken me this long to work up the courage to release it as it’s so different from anything I’ve released in the past. It could be the start of a new branch on the tree of my public musical life, or it could be a one-time folly. Time will tell. In any case, I hope you enjoy it: HERE IT IS — The whole album is a FREE DOWNLOAD so please download for better playback quality, and share with anyone you know who may be interested.

I hope to be able to catch up with you during the week or so of down time I’ll have in early June but I may decide to go off to some fiddle festival, in which case here’s some of what’s coming up in June:

In early July I will head back to Detroit, hopefully by way of a few gigs I recently found out about in central Illinois and possibly Chicago as well.

Tour Highlights

Starting at the beginning of April, it was great to spread my wings and play a bunch of solo sets and share the stage with Escaping Pavement. The highlights for me were visiting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and coming back to Viroqua, WI, to play Driftless Books & Music again. I love the U.P. and Viroqua, too. I end up wanting to move to these places any time I go and visit. Also, late spring, plenty of snow, climbing a slippery Sugarloaf in Marquette, lots of time out in the countryside.

The tour I just got back from on the West Coast was also full of beautiful places and wonderful people, new friends I hope to see again and again. I knew it would be a good time and a great band but I didn’t know just how good this band was going to be. I don’t know about future plans for this group but I hope we continue making music together, it’s really special and world-class. Also, redwoods, moon rocks, spectacular mountain and ocean drives.

New Videos!

This right here is the perfect music video for the song, made by Rennie Elliot. I think it’s a masterpiece. Check it out — Crazy Cats

Corn Potato String Band played at WBCM Radio Bristol’s Farm & Fun Time at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and so far we have this video of Russian Rag, more to come! It is a Facebook link — YouTube links coming soon.

Book Report

Yes, I actually did some reading this past month, thanks to Driftless Books & Music in Viroqua, WI. What an amazing place. If you love books and small towns I dare say it’s worth making it a destination. Especially if you can time it to coincide with the Gays Mills Folk Festival.

I read John LeCarre’s OurGame, a slightly underwhelming spy thriller, probably not his best. One of the main themes, aside from suspicion, secrecy, cunning and betrayal, was getting old.

Then I read two novels by Robert Heinlein. The first was called Revoltin2100, and the second was called Methuselah’sChildren. They were also not his best work but certainly had their moments. If you’re familiar with Heinlein you will recognize the usual themes of libertarianism and free love, technophilia and the pursuit for immortality. If you don’t know Heinlein’s work, you will find most of these ideas in any of his books. I won’t say he’s an amazing writer but it’s fun to read his books.

After that I started reading Aku-Aku, by Thor Heyerdahl. It’s an account of his expedition to Easter Island to be the first to do any serious excavations. Worth buying for the photos alone!

I got to the part where they landed at Easter Island before I made it to Mendocino County and visited my friend Kellen Kaiser, who has published a memoir of her own a couple years ago, called QueerspawninLove. I read it pretty fast as it was written in an easy-to-read, conversational storytelling kind of style. Kellen and I are the same age and have a lot in common so I could relate to much of what she wrote about, especially the being young and in love parts and not so much the having four lesbian moms parts. It’s a fun book to read and it’s written by my friend! Check her out!

Rambling Reflections

I’m still thinking a lot about community and culture. The preservation of tunes, songs, dances, recipes, etc. is so important and useful. But I sometimes worry that we can lose sight of where those things come from. We get so caught up in accumulating tunes, lore, etc. that we forget about preserving the circumstances that allow those things to be generated in the first place.

In my reading and experiences I see a trend in which culture is generated by groups of people who are suffering together. Culture can be a group identity-maintaining coping mechanism for oppressed people, which then catches the attention of the dominant culture which then appropriates and the cycle continues. I see an inverse relationship between prosperity and authentic culture as a general trend. Is there any way to create meaningful group identity and share day-to-day interactions with increased prosperity and health for all?

I’m not expressing myself as clearly as I could if I were to take the time to edit this a little bit but there you go, some raw rambling thoughts from your AJL.

Farewell

Thank you for keeping in touch. I hope I’ll see you out there soon. Stay tuned for UK tour dates for August (or as I like to call them U-Kray! Tour Dates.)

I don’t know about you but it’s mud season in Detroit. Yes, it’s that time of year when you discover the holes in your shoes because your socks are wet, and every step you take seems to go “Squish, squish, squish.”

It’s also the start of chirpy birdie season — I can hear a very persistent cardinal right outside my window as I type this…

I’m going to jump right in to the tour dates here. Scroll down a bit for some introspective rambling. Here are the dates!

Tonight, in Ann Arbor, I play solo at a house concert with friends of incredible ingenuity and talent, including my friend Andy Eggleston’s project where she literally makes audible music with her mind (using a homemade brain-to-synthesizer control device.) Contact Greta Van Doren on Facebook for details.

On April 15th I fly to Los Angeles and begin another tour, this time with Henry Barnes and friends. As soon as I land we begin:

Apr 15 – Tiki Parlor Fiddle/Banjo Workshops

Apr 16 – The Yard w/Frank Fairfield

Apr 20 – Oakland Dance

Apr 26 – Arcata House Show

It’s looking a little desperate for some gigs at this point… If you have any ideas or contacts for us please don’t hesitate to let me know. We are heading from L.A. to Seattle over a 2-week period. Help!

So yeah, that happens sometimes. You take a risk and it doesn’t work out perfectly. It could still end up being an amazing time, and I’m sure whatever happens we will meet some wonderful people and come away with some great stories to share.

In May the Corn Potato String Band is reuniting and we are doing a secret show in Minneapolis. You have to be on my mailing list to find out about it. OK, you are still on the list? OK. (It will be at the Ivy Building on May 10.)

May 22-23 Rehearsing, maybe recording, maybe taking care of stuff we’ve been putting off for a long time, or not, maybe learning new material, maybe just laying around and eating lots of hot dogs and tacos, maybe all of the above. WHO KNOWS.

I just got home from New York City, where I had the best time working with this exciting new project, Lovestruck Balladeers. I also got to play with Thomas Bailey and Max Johnson, with whom I have a project called Wild Hog, and I got to play with my dear friend Tamar Korn and with my blues hero Blind Boy Paxton. What an amazing trip.

Now I’m about to start a two-week solo tour co-billing with Escaping Pavement, and then two weeks on the West Coast with a new project featuring fiddler Henry Barnes. Meanwhile, I am very close to releasing an album I’ve had in the works for almost ten years that is totally unlike anything else anyone has ever heard me do before.

The thing I keep thinking is, I could be a lot more successful (in terms of making money, growing my fan base and reputation) if I just did one thing reasonably well, and kept at it. Why am I compelled to constantly start new projects and explore new territory, and so uninterested in focusing on self-promotion and streamlining my image to make myself easier to promote?

I don’t really have an answer for this but it’s what I’m thinking about these days. Ever since I started playing professionally I’ve wanted to do many things and do them well. My long term goals, aside from making great music and making at least a decent living (still working on it), have always included learning all the time, and meeting and working with interesting people who challenge me and help me improve my playing and my self.

At this stage I am feeling half lost in the woods and half on the verge of a breakthrough. I have no idea what to expect. I will keep trying things and maybe eventually my career will take some kind of definable shape. Or, maybe I will continue poking around all the little musical corners of the world I can find that appeal to me and all that will come of it is a life full of adventures, friendships, and great music.

I didn’t have any time for reading lately although I got some great recommendations. I think there are a lot of new videos of moi on FB and YouTube but I haven’t seen them so can’t recommend any especially.

Still thinking about making loads of videos of myself playing/teaching tunes but just when I’ve come around to saying, “All right I’ll do it,” I’m out of time. It’s on the list for the next time I’m wondering what to do with myself!

I hope I will see you or meet some of your friends in some of these new places —

Spring is coming, or so I heard. We changed our clocks, so at least there’s that. When the robots replace us will they still use daylight savings time?

I’m probably most excited about having mastered Fred Van Eps’s 1952 classic banjo adaption of James Scott’s piano rag, Ragtime Oriole. Somebody told me it’s probably the first instance of a ragtime piano piece imitating a bird call. You can see me playing its various parts on my Instagram feed and decide for yourself.

I survived another little tour with Roochie Toochie and the Ragtime Shepherd Kings, and it was, by most accounts, glorious. In fact, glorious would be an understatement but I will leave it there. If you were there then you know, and if you weren’t then you will just have to wonder and wait. We have more shows coming up in June, to be announced soon.

Now, on Saturday (tomorrow) I am traveling to Columbus for a weekend of tunes with friends. This Saturday, March 17, Lindsay and I play at Rambling House in Columbus with special guest Henry Barnes, and on Monday, March 19, we are playing there again for the monthly square dance with caller Sean Fen. Excellent.

From Columbus I drive to New York City for some big shows with hot new project Lovestruck Balladeers. This project is like a newborn baby, its skull hasn’t hardened yet, we have our whole collaborative musical life ahead of us yet, and so much is possible! We are playing at Mona’s on Tuesday March 20 and our Big Show is the next day, Wednesday March 21, at St. Mazie for Jake Sanders‘s CD Release. Here’s the FB event link. We will get some good rehearsals in next week and a few more appearances in NYC (see my website calendar for all the details)

Before I leave NYC I’ll get one good bluegrass jam in with Rick Snell and friends at Mona’s on the 26th, plus some kind of session with my Wild Hog buddies Max Johnson and Thomas Bailey somewhere, somehow on the 25th.

I’ll be on the road all day on the 27th and on the 28th we’re having a square dance at the Gaelic League in Detroit, wheee! I’ll have a few days after that to get ready for the next tour, this time I will be doing two weeks with Escaping Pavement touring around Lake Michigan (northern MI, upper peninsula, Minnesota, Wisconsin, ending up in Chicago area) and then flying to L.A. for two weeks with Henry Barnes and Friends touring the west coast from L.A. to Seattle. Dates are still being added so keep an eye on that website calendar…

Places we are definitely visiting include but are not limited to:

Petoskey, MI

Marquette, MI

Hancock, MI

Woodbury, MN

Bangor, WI

Viroqua, WI

Springfield, IL

Downers Grove, IL (any Emo Philips fans out there??)

Ottawa, IL

Fairmount, IL

Oakland, CA

Jackson, CA

and yeah, well, the rest of it remains a mystery for now.

I’m going to end it here since I’m feeling pretty busy these days and not terribly introspective. Spring is coming and I won’t dwell on the past but look ahead, TO THE FUTURE!